I worried I would miss it, and I knew, from losing Wyatt, that things happen the moment the soul is released. Wyatt had been there in the school, watching me, making sure I survived. Souls...

I found I could only glance at him for tiny moments and then I had to look away. He was perfect enough to hurt my feelings for a long time, and I wanted to let...

No. No, you can’t.

He leaned toward me and said his name like he was sharing a secret and it made me think he probably kept a lot of secrets. His smile was sweet and his teeth the tiniest...

Yeah, let’s go to the hotel. Grab your purse and I’ll find your coat.

Is this when you tell me I’m your soul mate, O’Neill?

Promise?” Well, that genie’s out of the bottle and there’s no stuffing her back in.

It could be why you’re still single.

Kavanagh has a smart mouth.

I’d stumbled upon the inner sanctuary of a woman who loved the world. Loved the faces of people she saw. Loved the way a hand looked when it was relaxed. Loved the way a woman...

Trusty steed.

I needed out. The Jeep wasn’t fast enough. I shut it down, grabbed the keys and started running like a bear was at my heels. I couldn’t even see Henry anymore through my tears so...

I recognized Meg’s swirly handwriting and crooked my index finger into the side of the envelope to rip it open. There was no letter. Just a picture. A picture of Meg holding a picture of...

Look at this one.” I picked up a small painting of a man with dark hair and a short, dark beard. He wore a loose shirt, cobalt blue, unbuttoned at the top, showing a prominent,...

On the best nights, he’d appear outside the bookstore window and wait for me to unlock the door. He usually hadn’t had time to shower between doing things with cattle and horses and coming to...

Were you not aware high school dances suck? That they always have sucked and they will continue sucking as long as the world turns?

Quit worrying so much about the boards and nails of your life. Focus on the stuff that lasts.” He glanced through the window toward the glowing light of the kitchen where Meg and my mom...

It wouldn’t be real love if there weren’t the possibility for another response to him. If we couldn’t choose not to love him, then our love would be empty. That’s why there’s evil in this...

He carried her until he reached one of the hot springs around what became Chapin, and then he walked into the water with her and held her there for three days. He had about given...

Just to be clear, if I, like, leaned over and whispered your name in your ear, still nothing?

I’m not sure about all the particulars that led to this moment. Do I believe life is a series of dots to be connected…or that no one can outrun destiny…or that all roads lead to...

All of the emotions that hit people at times like these, all of them, were coursing through us both like a secret we couldn’t tell. Because if we said everything we were thinking and feeling...

You want to know why God gave us people to love? Because that’s the only way we can understand how he feels about us. Desperate and jealous.

I’m here. Start at the beginning.

Okay, news flash. Jealousy is not something I enjoy. I hadn’t felt it much before. But I’d also never been in love. And I’d never been 3,300 miles away from the girl I loved while...

We formed an impromptu circle just so we could look at each other and memorize faces. We hardly noticed the waiting officials. We hardly noticed anything but our little family whose ties weren’t loosening at...

In my mind, I saw a string stretching from Henry’s heart at Quiet Waters to my heart. It was taut and it vibrated with Henry’s worries and fears and I felt them all.Deeply. I felt...

Most kids grow sullen and angry when they’re working through issues, but Thanet mustered up another kind of bull-headed strength. The kind that sees beyond circumstances to what really matters. How could anyone hurt a...

I smiled at him. Not even Wyatt would have known how to be this honorable when talking about a girl that had hurt him.

For a second, I stared at the map of her veins just under the surface of her thin skin. It was like her body was trying to become diaphanous. Instead of getting harder and stronger...

He was taking a leap here, negotiating with a crackhead, under the table, in a dark cantina. The courage etched on his face came from loving Aidia so much he’d close his eyes and walk...

Things are crazy here, and I’m questioning everything.

Hearing my brother’s words coming out of Henry, this stranger in a strange town, made me feel wild with all the loss—wild and wired with no place to put those feelings.

Hmmm. What you’re saying is that you’ve never been kissed?” He picked at a string on the blanket under us.

The first thing I needed, possibly the only thing, was to kiss her and I did, for as long as I could. I let us both breathe for a minute, and I perched her on...

My mom told me once that Wyatt loved her the way a boy will love his mother, but I loved her the way an artist loves another. Jo taught me what that meant.

It’s yours.

Is that you, as big as you are, know how to walk gently on this earth.

Leave my dad out of this.

You okay?

He’s hurting and it’s not just the Quinn thing. It’s being away from you and wondering if you’re hurting, too. Or if you’re having too much fun to hurt. What he really needed was to...

She didn’t see me because of the reflection on the store windows, and she wouldn’t know me in this car anyway. In fact, she probably wouldn’t know me with shaggy hair and the beginnings of...

Camus and Henry waved to me from that muddy truck. They both wanted me to get over myself.So, this was me, getting over myself. And it was about time.

He’d had to fold his long legs into his desk. His boots had seen better days, and his jeans unraveled in a curiously irresistible way at the bottom. He didn’t look like anyone I’d ever...

Oh, hey, did you want to keep these for when your invisible boyfriend returns from his fake vacation?

I hope we gave them that sense of belonging because I know there’ll be times in their lives when grasping at those bonds could mean the difference between making it and not.

He comes in through people. People who love us anyway. They jump right into the chaos with us and try to help us make sense of it. That’s what mercy is…it’s choosing to help, or...

It was about how men walk into a forest afraid because they know all the things that can happen. They might wake the noisy birds and cause chaos. But kids come into the trees and...

I turned my ear toward the door because I heard him breathing. When you’re alone and afraid, the simple sound of the steady in and out of air being drawn by another person is good...

Go to the Winter Dance with me.